Sunday, August 6, 2006
Jihad Abu Az Zamman - The Orator is Naked
(photo at left, the great world leader in a delicate moment of concentration)“We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force”
Tony Blair
Tony Blair, a qualified war criminal, a man who lead his country head first to an illegal war, a man who is personally responsible (according to the Geneva Conventions) for the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of thousands of refugees, a man who had lied to his cabinet, parliament and his people providing forged documents and misleading intelligence, a man that is currently leading himself and his government towards diplomatic isolation, a man who just two weeks ago gave the Israelis the green light to destroy Lebanon’s infrastructure and to displace half a million of its citizens, a man who currently lets America’s deadly supply to Israel refuel in British air bases, a man who together with Bush and Olmert is pushing for a global war, a man who is already at odds with his cabinet, his party, the EU, the UN and the British public - this very despicable man is as well a great orator, and despite all the above, he has the audacity to come up and suggest some moral guidelines. Tony Blair is now preaching to us all about ‘values’ and even ‘global values’. In the name of tolerance, righteousness and peace, the British PM has managed to produce one of the most Islamophobic texts this world has ever seen.
Like many others I read Tony Blair’s speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5236896.stm). But somehow, the more I engaged myself in the text, the more I realised that the last thing one can offer is a scholarly criticism of what seems to be the lowest form of Zionised Western bigotry. The shallow level of argumentation performed by the British PM would shame even a Zionist speaker at the Hyde Park corner. It is obvious that Blair’s speech exposes a severe lack of understanding of current world affairs at the very heart of British government. The PM falls short of elementary understanding of the Arab world, Islam is well beyond his reach. More worryingly, the man lacks any intellectual integrity; the notion of consistency is totally foreign to him.
I do not believe in prejudice and, as far as texts are concerned, I do not let myself be too judgmental. Generally speaking, I try to read as much as I can. I probably learn the most from texts I do not agree with. At the end of the day, ‘if you want to win you better know your enemy’. It was Benjamin Netanyahu, who helped me understand the logos behind the 3rd Reich. Nathan Sharansky served as a glimpse into Bush’s fascination with ‘democracy’ and Judeo-Centric Neoconservatism. Among my sins I have read Hitler’s Mein Kampf and ‘Hitler’s Second Book’. Indeed these two books helped me to further my understanding of militant racist nationalism. In practice, it was Hitler who helped me understand where Zionism is aiming. In an ideal world, Blair’s text should have fit nicely into my reading list. He is no doubt a major member in the ever-growing exclusive club of ‘World’s Greatest Evils’. Yet, unlike Hitler, Netanyahu and Sharansky, Blair’s intellectual sophistication is as low as the Dead Sea. It is not easy to admit, but the man is actually thick as wood and his reputation of being dim is growing by the second. The list of British politicians, Labour backbenches, world leaders and humanists who criticise his shallowness is now turning into a global mass movement. As bizarre as it may sound, Blair and his ideological twin on the other side of the Atlantic actually present us with the strongest possible argument against democracy and the Anglo-American ‘value system’. You look at Blair and Bush and think to yourself, “If this ‘leadership’ is what people choose when they are given a ‘free’ choice, democracy may be far from an attractive option.”
PM Blair, a man who already made it into the history of British politics as a compulsive liar took the opportunity and used the Los Angeles stage to preach his new message to the world. This time he is teaching us ‘values’ and even ‘global values’. One may stand up and ask, “What exactly are Mr. Blair’s personal values? Is lying to his people about WMDs one of his values?” Is trying to rob Iraqi oil in the name of democracy just another value of his? Does supporting Israel’s ultimate aggression against innocent Lebanese civilians represent just one of PM Blair’s ‘global values’? Is breaching the Geneva Conventions and invading Iraq while not being able to secure its civilian safety Blair’s ‘ultimate global value’? Most importantly, the more we know Blair, Bush and the ideologically flawed Neoconservatism, the more clear it is that some of us indeed believe that killing others in the name of a ‘value system’ is itself a value.
Saint Tony
In Los Angeles Mr. Blair, the great orator, presented himself as a dovish carrier of moderation and peace. “We” so he says, “will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other.”
Clearly, Blair’s excessive use of calming words such as: ‘moderation’, ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’ gives the impression that the man tries to distance himself from his American twin. This isn’t very surprising. After being titled by the British press as Bush’s poodle, after being caricatured in the Independent walking side by side with Bush while his tongue is shoved up Bush’s behind, Blair is craving for an assertive dignified image of a ‘peace broker’. Verbally he pretends to provide the goods, at least that is what he thinks. He is sure that he knows how to bring peace to the “Muslim, Jew and Christian.”
Being myself an ex Jew, I just can’t stop myself from waiting for the prophetic message by the newly emerging Saint Tony.
Apparently, I do not have to wait too long. “We,” he continues, “will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world.”
Wonderful, isn’t it? I reassure myself, for a change I can relax for a short while. The people who flattened Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Najaf are now going to teach us all what ‘fair and just’ are all about. The man who supported the erasure of Southern Beirut just two weeks ago is now telling us what ‘even-handed’ is. All that is left for me to say is: welcome to the fantastic world of Saint Tony.
Tony The Toddler
Painfully, it is crucial to admit that Blair’s world of international affairs is not that far off a cosmos from a one-year-old toddler’s. It is rather established that toddlers in their early stages have a very limited sense of history and even lesser realisation of causality. For toddlers, events around them are relevant as long as they are intrinsically orientated around some immediate needs: a baby is hungry, he cries, he gets milk, end of story. It is rather shocking to find out that Blair’s vision of current world affairs isn’t far more developed. Events are meaningful as long as they are set within his short-term oratory need. As it seems, Blair’s History starts on 9/11.
“9/11 in the US, 7/7 in the UK, 11/3 in Madrid, the countless terrorist attacks in countries as disparate as Indonesia or Algeria, what is now happening in Afghanistan and in Indonesia, the continuing conflict in Lebanon and Palestine, it is all part of the same thing. What are the values that govern the future of the world? Are they those of tolerance, freedom, respect for difference and diversity or those of reaction, division and hatred?”
The following is a brief sketch of toddler Tony’s pictorial political universe:
"Once upon a time, there was a world. This world was peaceful, beautiful and democratic and it was called ‘the West’. But then, one day (9/11), totally out of nothing, completely out of the fuck’n blue, a bunch of evil ‘fanatics’ called ‘Reactionary Muslims’ broke in through the sky and blew up its shrine known as the World Trade Centre. Only then, the good people of the West decided to globalise their goodness.”
Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, this seems to be Blair’s vision of the past. ‘We’ (The West) are innocent! ‘They’ (the ‘Reactionary Fanatic Muslims’) are the ‘baddies’. This very form of binary opposition is probably the essence of the Zio-centric banality of evil that is already deeply settled at the very core of the contemporary Anglo-American political discourse. Within the Anglo-American world, hegemony is granted to the one who manages to charismatically communicate the simplest idiotic tale. This may as well explain how come a man who holds the most vulgar, not to say idiotic, vision of current world affairs has been democratically elected three times in a row.
But then, is there any available educational strategy to deal with a toddler PM? With young kids you usually bear in mind that all you have to do is just to wait a bit. Give them time, one year, two years, and they will learn. On the contrary, the case of the British PM is very much the opposite. It seems as if the man is going through a rapid process of intellectual shrinking, what may be described pathologically as a form of a severe intellectual regressive disorder. The PM is by far more stupid now than he was ten years ago. Everyday he stays in office, the more we learn about his reactionary views. The king is naked and his oratory is empty. In the case of Toddler Tony there is not much hope. It seems as if no one can really explain to him that the state of Islamic resistance is nothing but a direct outcome of very many years of Anglo-American colonialism orientated mainly around oil thirstiness.
Toddler Tony is totally convinced as well that the Israeli Palestinian conflict started with Sharon’s unilateral disengagement. “When Prime Minister Sharon took the brave step of disengagement from Gaza,” says the regressive PM, “it could have been and should have been the opportunity to re-start the process.” How are we going to inform Tony that the disengagement had nothing to do with the core of the conflict? How can we tell him that had nothing to do with the Palestinian cause? How shall he learn that it didn’t aim at a resolution of the grave situation created by the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinian people by the young Jewish state? How should we notify the ignorant prime child about the 1917 Balfour declaration? It’s a big question indeed. Shall we seek some help from cartoonists? Young kids are visually orientated. Shall we provide him with some colourful drawings? We may as well have to consider recruiting the Teletubbies for a highly educational classified state mission. Indeed we are left with a major question: how should we approach a democratically elected toddler?
But PM Blair isn’t just a war criminal, compulsive liar and a toddler, he is an expert on Islam as well. He knows how to differentiate between what he calls “reactionary Islam” and “moderate mainstream Islam”. For him the difference is rather clear. Reactionary Islam is: Iran, Syria, Saddam’s Iraq, Taliban. For Blair all those are nothing but ‘fanatics’. Why exactly are they fanatics? I guess that in Tony’s world a Muslim who opposes Western colonialism is simply ‘reactionary’ and a ‘fanatic’. On the contrary, when Blair mentions ‘moderate Muslims’ he obviously refers to those who are serving Western interests, those who allow his Royal navy to dock, those who trade oil with British Petroleum. Amongst Blair’s ‘moderate Muslims’ you will find the most corrupt, non-democratic and murderous regimes around. The PM obviously turns a blind eye to their crimes.
Needless to say, Saddam’s Iraq was far from being a reactionary Islamic state. Needless to say, Syria is a secular Arab state. Saddam’s resistance wasn’t Islamically orientated. Syria’s opposition to Israel is purely territorial. However, to oppose Western colonialism, whether on a religious ground or any other ground is more than legitimate. It is neither reactionary nor fanatical. In fact it is nothing but exercising the notion of freedom.
Terrorism or Freedom Fighting
On the face of it, it seems as if the British PM doesn’t really know the difference between terrorism and freedom fighting. Terrorism is all about scoring points by spreading fear. This is obviously something Britain, America and Israel are practicing daily in Beirut, Baghdad, Basra and Kabul. Freedom fighting, on the other hand is to oppose Zionised Anglo-American terrorism. Freedom fighting is to claim your land and to fight an invader. This is exactly what the Hamas, the Hezbollah, and the Taliban are engaged with. Yes Mr Blair, Hezbollah’s war isn’t terrorism, it is a purely legitimate struggle grounded on a consistent humanist approach. As we all know, Hezbollah vowed to disarm when Sheeba Farm, occupied by Israel, is returned to Lebanese hands. May I tell you Mr Blair, if you were not a compulsive liar lacking any moral integrity, you would probably find yourself supporting the Hezbollah like most Arabs and Muslims do. You would as well support Arab resistance very much like every free spirit humanist on this planet. But somehow instead, you prefer to support the Zionist criminal tale. No wonder you have chosen a wealthy Zionist to be your prime fund raiser.
The Bigot and State Bigotry
In his speech Blair insists upon changing the ‘Muslim value system’. It is “not just about changing regimes but changing the values systems governing the nations concerned... The banner was not actually ‘regime change’, it was ‘values change’.” A moralist may ask, what exactly grants one the ethical right to impose one’s values on others? My answer is simple: to assume that one’s value system is superior to others is called supremacy. However to use military might and violence in order to impose one’s value system is nothing but bigotry. Seemingly, the British PM, who happens to be a war criminal, a liar, a toddler and an expert on Islam happens to be a bigot as well. And the policy he advocates is nothing but state bigotry. To drag Britain into that form of crude bigotry is to turn the entire British society into bigots. The implications of such a policy are devastating indeed. It’s no wonder why the vast majority of the British public are tired of the PM. It is about time, British democracy will use its correcting powers to get rid of this shameless man. It is probably the Labour Party that should lead this move. They better take action before it is too late. It isn’t about politics anymore. We are dealing here with world peace and it is a British PM together with America and Israel who are gravely endangering this peace.
Is it a coincidence that Blair fails to see it all? Not really: after being involved in so many devastating war crimes from Kabul to Beirut through Baghdad and Basra there is not much room left for doubts. Blair sees one truth; his own. The man is fully blind, ethically and morally. Yet, he is politically aware. In spite of being blind, he has managed to survive any political challenge so far. Like a proper serial murderer he is rather concerned with the penalty rather than with the moral consequences of his own crime. Blair knows very well that once he is out of office, he will have to confront some serious legal challenges to do with the carnage spread all over the Middle East. He will have to confront the families of British soldiers he sent to die in an illegal war as well. The man may realise already that he is going to spend some time behind bars. He will stick to his chair as long as he can.
Jihad Abu Az Zamman is a roaming guest writer we happen to like a lot. While not tying these articles to a homing pigeon so that we can have them, he claims that he is currently active transcribing “The Ring Cycle” for Minjayrah, Rabab and Shabbabah. We wish him luck.
Labels: Atzmon
